Tuesday, 5 March 2013

GIS and cartography in UK academia

The International
Benchmarking Review of UK Human Geography provides some interesting reading
for those of us in the geo-industry. Having spent most of my career in UK
academia (Northampton University and Kingston University) I find very little of
the report surprising and, particularly the way in which they review GIS and
cartographic provision with alarm. Some
of us have been saying it for years. I urge anyone interested in the role of
Universities in developing the next generation of geospatial professionals to
read the document. It makes some pertinent observations. I have a view, based
on my experience, that I can add to the document to put some flesh on the bones
of why GIS and cartography is in such a parlous state in UK Universities. These are by no means universal and there are
a few really excellent Universities and courses that buck the general trend but
here goes...

Poor academic salaries, particularly for junior staff
starting out is a real disincentive. Universities want to pay peanuts for
novice staff on non-permanent contracts. They get high teaching loads and poor
support for their research and are often let go after only a year or two. There
are very few young academics in this area. Kingston upon Thames is an expensive place to live. Senior
management routinely offered starting salaries at the lowest possible level that
were unable to meet even the basic costs of rental accommodation. Appointing
experienced staff on higher salaries was rarely an option because staff
turnover was normally seen as a way of trimming the salary budget.
Inexperienced staff, of course, add to the burden of senior colleagues due to
the constant rotation of mentoring of new staff...it takes time!

The culture of academia has become so bureaucratically driven
that incessant form filling, reviewing, approval and validation became the
daily norm. This was largely to feed internal processes and acted as a means to
feed some form of quality control....usually merely a paper exercise. Young academics do not want to enter this sort
of profession, driven by pointless
administration where they are treated poorly. High turnover of young staff is inevitable.
Low turnover of older staff in comfy slippers is rare.

Low student numbers applying to geospatial courses are a
fact. Despite the clear demand for geospatial professionals it’s a battle to
persuade school pupils that there is a career in geospatial. Geography is still
a marginal subject at school level if truth be told; school teachers rarely
have GIS/cartography (web, server etc) skills themselves, or resources. Couple
this with the perceived simplicity of commercial products (maps on phones),
it’s often hard for young people and parents to see it as a career. The map is complete
right? Therefore a very small number actively seek a geospatial degree. They
tend to play it safe and go for the traditional geography degree...or something
with the word ‘environmental’ in the title.

Geospatial focussed degree programmes are rare (and
dwindling). GIS is usually done as part of geography degrees and squeezed.
There isn’t enough space to fit everything and skills/methods type courses are
often the first to be marginalised. Kingston have gone down this route but are
simply the latest in a line of respected degree courses to have closed or cut
back this provision.

It’s expensive to resource a geospatial degree programme
with dedicated hardware, software and ancillary equipment. For only a few
students, the cost is often deemed too much. Yes there are ways around many of
the costs but not enough to avoid the inevitable. There was an art to fund
equipment purchases for our GIS programmes at Kingston...we did well; but to
the annoyance of many.

The number of academic staff who have left geo-academia and
sought a career outside is proof positive of the state of the problem. Salaries
are much better outside academia and the huge bureaucratic and administrative
burden that you shed is reason enough to make the switch. The report doesn’t
make enough of the quality of life aspect. It needs to understand why people
want to be academics and why, after experiencing its demands for a number of
years, many leave if they can. People leave for simple reasons - they get fed
up of the daily battles and the inability to do their job properly.

There are simply too many geography degree programmes. It
dilutes provision and there are not enough students to go round. Students tend
to actively avoid the technical aspects of geography; they always have and it’s
doubtful this will change any time soon.

Pace of progress in the geospatial industry is not
commensurate with academic timescales. From proposal to first intake is often
several years for new courses to be approved. By then, change has already made validated
proposals outdated. Changing course content once approved can also take a
couple of years due to internal University validation procedures. Additionally,
by the time a student graduates, their first year is probably already outdated.
We worked around the system at Kingston
and managed most of our changes under the radar. It was a necessary approach if
we were to remain relevant and at the cutting edge.

It is now impossible for academics to keep up with the pace
of change. Notwithstanding structural barriers, there simply is not enough time
to update practicals and lectures every year to reflect the state of play in
the industry. There’s plenty of free materials available to use such as
courseware, online lecture notes and practicals etc but use of this is all too
often seen as a short cut and frowned upon...particularly as students are
charged for their course. There needs to be much greater openness to the idea
that it’s simply not necessary for every course and every lecturer to develop
materials from scratch and update them year on year.

Students get disenfranchised when they perceive their
lecturers are more interested in their research career and are largely
anonymous. They rapidly lose respect and it becomes clear to them that they are
being fed dated material by people who seem disinterested. Of course this is a
perennial problem since academics live or die by the quality of their
publication record. It’s an unreasonable expectation. It’s inevitable that
those who concentrate on that aspect of their job do not have the time to meet
competing demands elsewhere.

Employers of geospatial graduates often do not appreciate
what they are seeking themselves and GIS degrees are often seen as
inferior. Entry salaries are low and
promotional opportunities are scarce. Graduate geospatial jobs are often filled
by those who have gone on to gain an MSc qualification. The job market is
extremely competitive. In short, it is often not someone with an idea of what a
geospatial graduate is or what they can offer that is actively
recruiting...they throw around terms without really understanding.

Geography as a discipline tends to ignore the very real
demand for graduates who have a skill set that combines an understanding of
geography with that of a computer scientist. Pushing buttons is not adequate.
Being able to code and understand computer science is a vital cog in the armoury
of the skilled geospatial graduate. Attracting students to this sort of mix brings
with it its own challenges of course. And there are also precious few courses
that truly mix the disciplines because geography and computer science are
normally delivered from different Faculty silos meaning resource models
struggle to support inter-Faculty course provision.

I have long said that the US is 10 years ahead of the UK in
believing in and investing in geospatial education. The simple test is
this...ask someone on the street in the UK what GIS is and they will likely not
have a clue. Ask someone in the US and they likely will. GIS permeates education and awareness is
strong in the US. This is reflected in the fact that nearly a quarter of all
geographically related job adverts in the US are GIS related compared to 2% in
the UK. Quite simply, the mindset in UK academia has been to marginalise GIS
and that approach is now strikingly apparent.

It’s quite possible that the thematic splicing of geography
into sub disciplines is no longer relevant. Certainly, infusing GIS across the
curriculum and genuinely using it as a coordinating framework would better
integrate it. This isn’t to say that it shouldn’t receive detailed treatment in
its own right but there needs to be a better approach than simply offering a
single methods option. My experience of this is that it doesn’t work. It needs
embedding across the curriculum.

Even when you demonstrate innovation and world-leading
research and teaching it’s sometimes impossible to convince people of the
value. At Kingston we did both but while we had considerable external respect (high
research profiles, good graduate employment figures, awards, invited keynotes,
strong links with the geocommunity etc) the GIS courses internally were
regarded as intellectually subservient to all other geo-provision; and a
financial sump. We worked magic to navigate the internal barriers and maintain
our international position but ultimately you can only do that for so long.

For me, page 26 is very telling reading. Look at which
Universities responded to the review and which didn’t. My old stomping ground is strikingly absent..as
are most of the so-called newer universities. If you cannot encourage an institution that purports
to have valued GIS for the best part of 25 years and act as a focal point then
you probably have all you need to know about the battle that lies ahead to get
institutions to value GIS and cartography which the report is screaming for.

2 comments:

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Hi! I'm a lower sixth student in the UK, and through many hours spent looking at maps (physical and digital) alongside reading your, and others' blogs, I've become interested in mapping and GIS both as a nerdy hobby or potentially a career. I have very little experience in mapping (plotting points on Google Maps and making a few edits to OSM) and none coding, so I was wondering how you would recommend I get 'into' mapping and GIS - should I try to start using Mapbox or QGIS and just get as much practice as possible in mapping, and if so how would you suggest I get ideas for *what* to map? Additionally, I'll soon need to make decisions about university - do you, with experience of the process/system, have any recommendations about possible cartography courses / courses that include cartography that could lead me to a career in cartography?Thank you for all of the inspiration that you've given me here, and all of the links to other maps/blogs/software to investigate!

Maps are my passion and my profession. This is my personal cartonerd blog where I offer opinions and critique maps. Serious points with a good dose of British sarcasm. Do not be offended. It's about the maps, not you. Views entirely my own.